Lenovo to increase its focus in India and double its local smartphone manufacturing presence

The Lenovo Group is looking to increase its focus in India and double up its local manufacturing presence.

Aymar de Lencquesaing, Senior Vice President of Lenovo Group, speaks at the Viva Technology event in Paris, France, June 30, 2016. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

Speaking to The Economic Times, executive vice president, Lenovo Group and chairman at Motorola, Aymar de Lencquesaing, said “India is one of my top five strategic markets, so we will continue to over-index on the focus on investment and to that end, we have recently doubled our production capacity which will hold us for some time.”

It has partnered with US-based Flex to manufacture phones in Chennai. The manufacturing will take place for both Lenovo and Motorola.

Chinese brands like Xiaomi, Oppo, Huawei, and Vivo are competing against each other in the Indian smartphone market. Lencquesaing remains unfazed. While he wants to focus on gaining from the growing Indian smartphone market, he is looking to win in the longer run.

After North America and Brazil, according to Lencquesaing, India is the third top market, when it comes to revenue. “We continue to see conversion from feature phones to smartphones, so players like us are benefitting from the growth in the market and conversion,” he added.

In 2014, China's Lenovo Group Ltd had closed its $2.91 bn acquisition of the Motorola handset unit from Google Inc.

The purchase had come into the picture as Lenovo, a PC maker, had ramped up its effort to diversify its business and establish itself as a smartphone maker with global appeal.

In other news, Lenovo, the parent company of Motorola had recently announced the launch of its latest devices, the Moto G5S and G5S Plus for the Indian market. These two devices are the 2017 upgrades to the G5 and G5 Plus. Both these devices are still considered part of the 5th generation and Motorola maintains that they are special versions of the G5 and G5 Plus.